ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Last year was the first full year of my tenure as CEO of BNY Mellon. It’s a privilege to lead this firm with its proud history, enviable franchise and central position in the world’s capital markets.
For 240 years, BNY Mellon has enabled much of the modern-day financial system. Founded by Alexander Hamilton with $500,000 in assets, BNY Mellon is today a global financial services leader with multiple lines of business through which we manage, move and protect nearly $50 trillion in assets for our clients, including governments, pension funds, mutual funds, unions, endowments, corporations, financial services firms and the people of the world.
GLOBAL REACH AND SCALE
$47.8T
Assets under custody and/or administration1
$2.0T
Assets under management2
$12.5T
Average daily clearance value3
$5.7T
Average triparty balances3
$2.4T
Average daily U.S. dollar payment value3
$312B
Wealth Management client assets4
The unique role we play in the financial system — touching around one-fifth of the world’s investable assets — gives us a tremendous responsibility, and our success is critical not only to our clients’ success, but also the global economy at large.
That responsibility motivates us every day. To help our clients achieve their ambitions. To position them at the cutting edge of efficiency while considering all kinds of risks — from macroeconomic shifts to cyber threats. To improve financial performance for the benefit of our shareholders. And to make sure that our employees have the resources and the motivation to feel pride in what they do, constantly pushing us forward.
Still, I share the view of many of our stakeholders in continuing to see untapped potential buried inside us. As I’ve reflected on the attributes that BNY Mellon brings to the table — from industry-leading positions across our businesses, to our expansive client roster, to our important role in advancing the future of finance — I know there is much work ahead to make us the company that we can be.
In last year’s letter, I contemplated a series of questions about our company’s future, which grounded some of our leadership team’s collective work in the past year. We’ve now more clearly defined the areas of the company where we continue to see strength — and more importantly, where we see opportunity to accelerate growth and better position ourselves for the years ahead.
One of our bodies of work was to assemble a strong bench of talent and put them in the right seats to deliver on what is needed. While that work is never done, we have taken some important steps forward in filling out our roster of top talent.
Throughout 2023, we worked hard on several fronts simultaneously because we insisted on increasing the internal tempo of the organization and delivering the beginnings of superior financial results while laying some of the foundation for a multi-year transformation. As we executed this work, we introduced three strategic pillars to guide us:
- Be More for Our Clients
- Run Our Company Better
- Power Our Culture
These pillars are not a top-down consulting exercise for what we could do; rather, they represent an articulation of what we are, and must be, centered on. Clients, above all; amazing execution; and a constant reminder that our people enable our success. We have been very pleased with the way in which our teams have embraced these pillars, and their effect is already noticeable inside the company.
BREADTH OF OUR CLIENT FRANCHISE*
91%
of Fortune 100 companies
92%
of the Top 100
investment managers
94%
of the Top 100
banks
As of December 31, 2023. Consists of assets under custody and/or administration (“AUC/A”), primarily from the Asset Servicing line of business and, to a lesser extent, the Clearance and Collateral Management, Issuer Services, Pershing and Wealth Management lines of business. Includes the AUC/A of CIBC Mellon Global Securities Services Company (“CIBC Mellon”), a joint venture with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, of $1.7 trillion at December 31, 2023.
As of December 31, 2023. Excludes assets managed outside of the Investment and Wealth Management business segment.
Average for the year ended December 31, 2023.
As of December 31, 2023. Includes AUM and AUC/A in the Wealth Management line of business.
*Sources: Fortune 100: For 2023, Fortune, Time Inc. ©2023; Investment Managers: Pensions & Investments, worldwide assets under management as of December 31, 2022, P&I Crain Communications Inc. ©2023; Banks: S&P Global, total assets** as of December 31, 2022, ©2023 S&P Global; client penetration assessment based on positive 2023 revenue with client company or parent/holding company.
**According to S&P Global, company assets were adjusted on a best-efforts basis for pending mergers, acquisitions and divestitures as well as M&A deals that closed after the end of the reporting period through March 31, 2023. Assets reported by non-U.S. dollar filers were converted to dollars using period-end exchange rates. Total assets were taken on an “as-reported” basis, and no adjustments were made to account for differing accounting standards. The majority of the banks were ranked by total assets as of December 31, 2022 and the data was compiled April 12, 2023.
FINANCIAL RESULTS AND 2024 PRIORITIES
MARKET POSITIONS
Securities Services
#1
Global
Custodian1
#1
Global provider of Issuer Services2
Market and
Wealth Services
#1
Clearing firm for broker-dealers and Top 3 RIA Custodian3
TOP 5
Global U.S. dollar payments clearer4
#1
Global provider of Clearance and Collateral Management5
Investment and
Wealth Management
TOP 15
Global Asset Manager6
TOP 10
U.S. Private Bank7
Ranking based on latest available peer group company filings. Peer group included in ranking analysis: State Street, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Northern Trust and RBC.
Full-year 2023 figures by deal volume and count referenced herein include long-term program and stand-alone bond issuance in markets where BNY Mellon actively participates and for which public trustee and/or paying agent data is available. Sources include: Refinitiv, Dealogic, Asset-Backed Alert and Concept ABS. Depositary Receipts ranked #1 based on market share sourced from BNY Mellon internal analysis.
LaRoche Research Partners, “US Broker Clearing Relationship Changes 2022,” based on number of broker-dealer clients. Registered Investment Advisor rankings sourced from “Cerulli Report, U.S. RIA Marketplace 2023,” Cerulli Associates.
The Clearing House. Based on CHIPS volumes for the year ended December 31, 2023.
Finadium market analysis as of June 2023.
Pensions & Investments, October 23, 2023. Ranked by total worldwide assets under management as of December 31, 2022.
Based on company filings and The Cerulli Report, 2022. Ranked by Wealth Management assets under management as of December 31, 2022.
Delivering on Our 2023 Goals
The past year was marked by a significant change in the path of inflation, with economists now predicting that central banks in many developed economies will cut rates in 2024. Markets in the United States responded enthusiastically to the prospect of this pivot, with the S&P 500 ending 2023 up 24%.
Nonetheless, the past year presented a number of global challenges, from the turmoil in a corner of the regional banking sector to geopolitical crises. We saw a mixed economic picture, especially outside of the U.S. Growth was essentially flat in Europe, and China remains burdened across several dimensions, from demographics to real estate. Around the world, the quickening pace of generative Artificial Intelligence was another watershed moment of 2023, raising a number of questions — from its tremendous potential to improve productivity, the need for robust governance to consider and manage novel risks, to its potential impact on labor markets. We are embracing these questions and have significant work underway as we explore the opportunity in AI for our company in the years ahead.
Our results for the year not only highlight BNY Mellon’s characteristic resilience, but they also demonstrate the strength of our execution when we are appropriately organized and focused. We reported earnings per share of $3.87 on $17.5 billion of revenue, up 7% year-over-year; expenses of $13.3 billion, up 2% year-over-year; and return on common equity of 9%. Adjusting for the impact of notable items, EPS of $5.05 increased by 10% on $17.7 billion of revenue, which was up 5% year-over-year; expenses were $12.3 billion and return on tangible common equity was 22%. 1,2
At the beginning of last year, we communicated three financial goals for 2023:
- First, we expected to generate approximately 20% net interest revenue growth year-over-year — we delivered 24%.
- Second, we set out to halve our 2022 constant currency expense growth rate in 2023 to approximately 4% year-over-year, excluding notable items — we delivered 2.7%.3
- Third, we sought to return north of 100% of 2023 earnings to common shareholders through dividends and buybacks — we delivered 127%.
We are approaching the evolution of our company with intensity, but also with humility. We will not get everything right. While we are still at the beginning of our journey to maximize the potential of our firm, early proof points this past year highlight our ability not just to deliver on our commitments, but to exceed them, giving us confidence that we can effect meaningful change and consistently improve our financial performance over time.
Adjusted (Non-GAAP) measures exclude notable items.
See “Supplemental information — Explanation of GAAP and Non-GAAP financial measures” on pages 112 and 114 of the Annual Report for a reconciliation.Return on tangible common equity, a Non-GAAP measure, excludes goodwill and intangible assets, net of deferred tax liabilities.
See “Supplemental information — Explanation of GAAP and Non-GAAP financial measures” on page 114 of the Annual Report for a reconciliation.Adjusted (Non-GAAP) measure of constant currency expense growth rate excludes notable items and currency translation.
See “Supplemental information — Explanation of GAAP and Non-GAAP financial measures” on pages 112 and 113 of the Annual Report for a reconciliation.
SECURITIES SERVICES
Our Securities Services segment represents the largest of our segments, and we see further growth and profitability on the horizon. Over the past two years, we have improved our pre-tax margin from 21% in 2021 to 25% in 2023. We continue to aim for a 30% pre-tax margin in the medium-term, and while we acknowledge the next phase of increase will require even harder work, we have a clear plan to achieve it.
- Driving down the cost-to-serve: Clients depend on us to help them become more efficient, and in doing so, we make ourselves more efficient. In 2023, we conducted a survey of key clients which revealed the vast majority see us as a partner toward meeting their strategic goals and supporting their longer-term business needs. Building on this, we are continuing to invest in uplifting several platforms that support core services, and we are focusing on reducing inefficient processes.
- Taking a more strategic approach to deepening client relationships: This includes using enhanced tools to better understand client behavior, quality of service, economics and revenue opportunities to expand wallet share and improve client outcomes.
- Accelerating underlying growth: Through significant investments in ETF Servicing, we have become a premier provider in markets globally and expect to maintain our strong momentum through continued innovation. Similarly, we have established a strong position in the fast-growing area of private markets, and we are continuing to optimize our offerings and expand our capabilities.
MARKET AND WEALTH SERVICES
In Market and Wealth Services, our focus is to drive growth through deliberate investments in our client platforms without compromising profitability. Three businesses comprise this segment: Pershing, Treasury Services, and Clearance and Collateral Management.
Pershing benefits from a strong position in the U.S. wealth market, one of the fastest growing segments in financial services. Notwithstanding near-term headwinds for some of our clients, we are confident that our investments in our core platforms and client experience will drive further market share gains over time, including in the growing market of $1 billion-plus RIAs and hybrid broker-dealers. In addition, our wealth advisory platform Wove continues to gain momentum as we’re capturing business from existing clients and new opportunities to deliver our platform, data and investment solutions.
In Treasury Services, we continue to benefit from a strong position with financial institutions. We’re one of the top five U.S. dollar payments clearers in the world, clearing roughly $2.4 trillion of U.S. dollar payments daily, on average. Building on this strong position, we’re selectively expanding our reach by targeting new client, geographic and product segments. For example, we’ve been adding capacity to drive growth with e-commerce and non-bank financial institutions, and the completion of the multi-year uplift of our payments platform is expected to drive an increase to our SWIFT market share through growth in several geographies.
Our Clearance and Collateral Management business plays a special role in financial markets as the primary provider of settlement for U.S. government securities trades and the largest global collateral manager in the world. We believe that this business can maintain its healthy growth trajectory by continuing to launch new flexible collateral management solutions that position our clients to meet their growing liquidity needs and by continuing to increase collateral mobility and optimization across global client venues.
INVESTMENT AND WEALTH MANAGEMENT
Investment and Wealth Management continues to be an important segment for the firm. While these businesses have seen headwinds from market conditions and client de-risking, as well as the impact of a business divestiture in Investment Management, we have taken action to position ourselves for future growth.
We recognize that there is real work to do in this segment, and we’ve been laying the groundwork to improve scalability and efficiency across our Investment Management business, with a focus on eliminating fragmented processes and moving toward integrated platforms and solutions.
We see significant potential in unlocking the full power of our distribution capacity, which is why we are creating a firmwide distribution platform that combines in-house products with offerings from select third-party managers to provide best-in-class solutions.
Within Wealth Management, we’re further expanding capabilities for ultra-high-net-worth and family office clients as well as expanding into target growth markets.
OUR STRATEGIC PILLARS
BE MORE
FOR OUR
CLIENTS
RUN OUR
COMPANY
BETTER
POWER
OUR
CULTURE
One of my goals coming into this role was to set a roadmap and tangible targets to reinvigorate the next phase of growth for the firm. Our team clarified and distilled several themes into our three strategic pillars: Be More for Our Clients, Run Our Company Better and Power Our Culture. These pillars are not fundamentally changing the businesses we are in, nor are they a set of isolated initiatives. Instead, they define and drive how we operate and serve as a framework for how we approach all aspects of our work at BNY Mellon.
BE MORE FOR OUR CLIENTS
As a commercial enterprise that has operated for nearly two-and-a-half centuries, we are able to thrive for only one reason — by serving our clients.
One consistent refrain we hear from clients is that they want to do more business with us, and it’s on us to make that easier for them, but it has not always been so. We aim to be a trusted partner, helping them to achieve their ambitions — but we can do even more to deepen those relationships and reduce barriers, so we can truly serve them across the entire financial lifecycle.
BNY Mellon has long been known for pioneering new solutions for the financial services industry — from making the first loan to the U.S. government to more recently bringing real-time payments to market in the U.S.
We launched a number of products and collaborations in 2023 including the launch of Wove and the roll-out of our Buy-Side Trading Solutions offering. But it goes well beyond that. All our businesses strive to bring new client solutions to the market — from Bankify to real-time payments on FedNow to white-labeling LiquidityDirect to BNY Mellon Advisors — and we filed more patents than ever before in 2023.
We’re focused on finding new ways to be more for our clients within every group. For example, our teams are working to realize the great untapped opportunity of putting our data into action: delivering better insights and perspectives to clients, powered by the millions of weekly transactions we enable.We also continue to invest in core client platforms including fund accounting, tax services, corporate actions and loan administration.
Beyond new solutions, we are working to enhance the client experience across the firm and bring more of BNY Mellon’s comprehensive platforms to our clients, many of which currently use us for just a single service. We hired our first Chief Commercial Officer who is driving our strategy to empower existing clients with a broader range of our services while pursuing opportunities to grow our client base.
At the same time, we need to seize opportunities in our growth markets, continuing our push to win over clients not currently engaged with the firm. Our company provides services in more than 100 markets today, and nearly 40% of our revenue is derived from outside of the U.S. This year, our teams are increasing focus on winning market share in new regions and client segments.
RUN OUR COMPANY BETTER
Next, we took meaningful steps toward running our company better in 2023, increasing discipline with how we spend so that our investments in the business go further. We generated double the amount of efficiency savings compared to the prior year, which allowed us to self-fund half a billion dollars of incremental investments. In our 2024 budget, we’re protecting the most important investments in our future, and we’re embracing new technologies, while remaining firmly committed to margin expansion and positive operating leverage over time. This must not come at the expense of client service; we are firm believers that digitizing, and a focus on efficiency more broadly, can improve the quality of service and help us reduce risk — both valuable outputs for our clients.
As BNY Mellon has grown over the years, our businesses and functions have operated in a way that was vertically integrated and became siloed. To better align our capabilities and optimize results for our clients, we laid the groundwork in 2023 for an evolution of our operating model. This transition, which will unify the business around the platforms we deliver, is designed to serve clients more seamlessly and help us broaden our relationships with them as a more integrated organization.
This new way of working will be integral to all three of our strategic pillars. Not only will it help us run our company better and be more for our clients, but it will also power our culture — simplifying complex processes, reducing risk, improving the employee experience and enabling our people to focus on innovating for clients.
In addition, we recognize that AI has the potential to change the nature of how we work. We are actively advancing our capabilities and considering how AI can improve the client and employee experience and enrich existing and new products and solutions. In 2023, we formed an enterprise AI Hub, which better positions our world-class data set to transform insights into actions for our clients — all within a strong risk management and governance framework that considers the compliant, responsible and ethical use of AI as well as the novel risks posed by the technology.
Resilience forms the foundation for running our company better. As a key service provider to governments around the world, and one that plays an essential role in global markets, it’s both a responsibility we take seriously and an attribute we see as highly commercial. Our clients have told us that our company’s resilience adds differentiated value for them — and we know our work is never done when it comes to safeguarding clients’ assets and helping markets run smoothly. Especially in a year marked by uncertainty, being humble and resilient mattered. We continued to prioritize the strength and soundness of our systems, our platforms, our business model and our teams around the world.
POWER OUR CULTURE
While we focus on being more for our clients and running our company better, everything we do depends on our people, and it is important that BNY Mellon is a place where people are proud to work and excited to grow their careers. Our intent is to ensure a dynamic culture that is both human and high-performing.
Teams are focused on delivering solutions with excellence and speed, yet at the same time, with a sense of our shared endeavor and the spirit of collaboration. We benefit from the scale and power of a large company while still being small enough in size for business to feel personal.
Others also recognize us for this special culture. We’re honored to be one of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies for the 27th time, and we were also named to JUST Capital’s “Most Just Companies” list for the second consecutive year, ranking within the top quarter of all companies analyzed and #1 in the Capital Markets category.
- Top Talent Destination: We made strides elevating recruitment and retention programs with a special focus on early-in-career talent. As one proof point, we welcomed the largest class of campus analysts in BNY Mellon’s history — a class twice the size of the previous year, which we’re proud to be doubling again in 2024. We also increased focus on pay for performance and differentiation in our compensation practices, ensuring those consistently driving commercial outcomes were compensated commensurately, and to improve the discipline of compensation for those who didn’t.
- Elevating Experiences and Sense of Belonging We want our people to feel excited and supported coming to work every day, thriving in an environment where they can be true to themselves. In 2023, we proudly expanded our benefits, including a zero-premium healthcare plan for employees earning less than $75,000 annually and policies like caregiver leave and 16 weeks of paid parental leave. We also launched a new Wellbeing Support Program to provide more targeted, personalized and quicker access to mental health services.
- Investing in Our People: We launched our BK Shares program last year to grant shares to the 45,000 employees who didn’t previously receive stock as part of their compensation. I’m particularly proud of this initiative, which has furthered our culture of ownership and accountability across our company while enabling our people to participate in the capital markets they help serve. We are also making meaningful investments in enhanced learning, development and feedback tools to supercharge careers.
OUR COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS
AND SUSTAINABILITY
Increased participation in financial markets benefits everyone, drives growth and expands economies. Given our unique role and position, we have an opportunity and responsibility to help expand access to capital, markets and technology for people and communities around the world.
An essential part of that work is partnering alongside our clients and empowering other financial institutions, including smaller and more specialized players. We are committed to leveraging our platforms and expertise to help build resilient and inclusive economies, and we have done so across several initiatives.
Organizing a Historic Debt Issuance: In May 2023, we became the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) to organize a debt issuance led entirely by women-, minority- and veteran-owned financial institutions. This built upon groundwork we laid the prior year when eight veteran-owned broker-dealers participated in a $750 million offering of senior bank notes. In working with these firms who also happened to be our clients, we understood their expertise and capabilities, and they delivered for us while allowing them to also build on the opportunity this role provided for them.
Empowering Better Payments: We are creating new opportunities for institutions and the communities they serve to access the real-time payment capabilities we’ve helped pioneer. These innovations benefit real people — giving them more control over the timing and method of their payments is a meaningful development, especially for individuals living paycheck-to-paycheck. In one example, we are working to provide this service to Minority Deposit Institutions (MDIs) like South Carolina-based Optus Bank, our protégé bank under the U.S. Treasury Department program.
Aligning Impact With Commercial Success: We are also developing innovative solutions includings SPARKSM shares, which empowers clients to align their liquidity investments with philanthropic goals, using a portion of our revenue contributing to an eligible non-profit of their choice.1 This builds on the success we saw with BOLD® shares, whereby a portion of profit on our Dreyfus Money Market Fund translates into support for students in financial need at Howard University.2
Furthering Sustainability: A growing priority for our global client base is how BNY Mellon can help them achieve their sustainability goals. Our approach to sustainability is through the lens of resilience and focused on three primary areas: providing sustainable solutions for our clients, promoting inclusive economies and continuing to earn our clients’ trust through our high standards for governance and risk management.
BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc. (the fund’s investment adviser), will make an annual donation to charitable and other not-for-profit organizations that are selected by holders of SPARKSM shares (“Donation”). The organization(s) selected by the shareholder for the Donation must be tax-exempt pursuant to section 501(c)(3) under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and determined by BNY Mellon to be eligible (“Eligible Organizations”). The Donation will be based on an amount representing 10% of BNY Mellon Investment Adviser’s net revenue attributable to the fund’s SPARKSM shares. “Net revenue” represents the management fee paid by the fund to BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, after any fee waivers and/or expense reimbursements by BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, with respect to SPARKSM shares, and will be paid from BNY Mellon Investment Adviser’s own past profits.
The BOLD® shares support Howard University’s GRACE Grant, which stands for Graduation, Retention, and Access to Continuing Education, with an annual charitable donation of 10% from past profits. “Net revenue” represents the management fee paid by the Fund to BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc. after any fee waivers and/or expense reimbursements by BNY Mellon Investment Adviser and less any revenue sharing payments made by BNY Mellon Investment Adviser or its affiliates, with respect to the fund’s BOLD shares.
IN CONCLUSION
We are still early in our journey with a lot of work ahead. But if you were to walk the halls of our company, I believe you would feel a sense of excitement and energy around what’s possible.
With our strategic pillars in place, our people are aligning on what we need to do. Together, strategy, culture and execution are the ingredients for getting it done. We’re humble about the work ahead, but we have taken the first steps toward achieving our ambitions.
We have tremendous responsibility to do so. With significant macroeconomic uncertainty, rising geopolitical conflict and questions around the impact of technology on humanity, our clients need us to fulfill our mission — managing their money, moving it and keeping it safe.
To our clients: Thank you for your support. We look forward to serving you in even greater ways.
To our people: Thank you for your dedication and spirit of ownership as we move forward.
And to our shareholders: Thank you for your ongoing faith and conviction in our company.
Now, the hard work of execution continues. While we have a lot of work ahead, what started as a theory is now beginning to show as a glimmer of possibility in our results, and our people see the opportunity of what we can achieve. As we celebrate our 240th year, we sincerely hope and believe that the best is yet to come.
Onward,
Robin Vince,
President and Chief Executive Officer
(a) Return on tangible common equity, a Non-GAAP measure, excludes goodwill and intangible assets, net of deferred tax liabilities. See “Supplemental information — Explanation of GAAP and Non-GAAP financial measures” on page 114 of the Annual Report for a reconciliation.
(b) Adjusted (Non-GAAP) measures exclude notable items. See “Supplemental information — Explanation of GAAP and Non-GAAP financial measures” on pages 112 and 114 of the Annual Report for a reconciliation.
(c) Consists of AUC/A primarily from the Asset Servicing line of business and, to a lesser extent, the Clearance and Collateral Management, Issuer Services, Pershing and Wealth Management lines of business. Includes the AUC/A of CIBC Mellon Global Securities Services Company, a joint venture.
(d) Excludes assets managed outside of the Investment and Wealth Management business segment.
(e) For our CET1, Tier 1 capital and Total capital ratios, our effective capital ratios under U.S. capital rules are the lower of the ratios as calculated under the Standardized and Advanced Approaches, which was the Advanced Approaches for the periods presented.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT ON FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
A number of statements in this letter to shareholders may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about our strategic priorities, financial performance and financial targets. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or occurrences, are inherently uncertain and are based upon current beliefs and expectations of future events, many of which are, by their nature, difficult to predict, outside of our control and subject to change.
By identifying these statements for you in this manner, we are alerting you to the possibility that our actual results may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements as a result of a number of important factors, including the risk factors and other uncertainties set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2023 and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they were made, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after such date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.